PRO
by kyleisgod
Summary: Only Kenny can teach Kyle how to survive being poor. Friendship fic. Based on ep 1301.


Author's notes: This oneshot is based on episode 1303. The following story is supposed to take place right after the end of the episode. Also, don't mind the brief Obama inclusion. This story and the character's dislike of Obama both have nothing to do with politics, so let's not get all offended and let the reviews of this fanfic turn political, 'kay? 'Kay.

Disclaimer: I don't own South Park. If I did, I'd be on a writing break right now instead of creating new stuff.

* * *

Kyle's thumb aggressively pressed the remote control's power button. The living room's television set shut off. Kyle's eyebrows furrowed in growing anger as he slammed the remote control down against a couch cushion. It wasn't the president's speech Kyle minded so much as it was the fact that he was accepting credit for work he hadn't actually done. Typical politics.

"Stupid Obama...."

The doorbell rang. Kyle forgot his angry feelings and hopped off the couch. Once at the front door he placed his hand on the doorknob and shuddered in slight discomfort. His hand muscles were still tired from charging and signing away the town's debt. He opened the door to reveal Kenny, clad in his trademark parka.

"Hey dude. How you feeling?"

"Hey Kenny. I'm better now, thanks."

Kenny laughed. "You call seventeen-thousand in debt 'better'? You -should- be feeling like shit."

Kyle frowned. He wasn't surprised by Kenny s complete lack of finesse, but the comments made him cringe nonetheless. Reality was harsh for Kyle right now. His brain didn't particularly want to deal with it.

"I meant I'm better physically."

"Oh."

Kyle sighed. "God, I don't even know how I'm going to pay that off. What was I thinking?"

Kenny placed a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "You did a good thing," he said, sounding mostly sincere when he spoke. Kyle didn't mind the obvious insincerety in his friend's voice. He couldn't blame Kenny for being logical. He was sure that digging yourself into a debt-hole that would eat up a large college fund and then some in order to save their admittedly crappy town probably wasn t Kenny s idea of an ingenuous plan. Or anyone else's for that matter.

Kyle scoffed. "Not according to the news. They gave Obama all the credit for turning the ecconomy around." That was perhaps the worst part of all of this. Now Kyle wouldn't even be respected for his selfless act, let alone recognized.

Kenny removed his hand. Kyle could tell that Kenny was giving him a look of pure pity even from behind his parka. "Oh. Yeah, well, it won't be so bad."

"Won't be so bad? How can you say that? _You're_ not the one who has to pay it back."

"No, but I'm the one whose been poor my whole life."

Kyle looked to the ground. He shuffled his feet and stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. "Sorry."

"It's okay. My point is since I'm poor I can show you how to pay it off faster."

Kyle looked back up. "What do you mean?"

"I can show you how to save money. How to live poor like me so you have more money to give Colorado."

Kyle hesitated to respond for a moment. Live like Kenny? Kyle wasn't very fond of rats, dying, or the lack of a sweet Nintendo brand game system in his house.

"I guess I can use all the help I can get. Okay."

Kenny nodded. "Follow me."

* * *

The Happy Burger parking lot was packed with cars. Fortunately Kyle and Kenny had walked to it. People moved in and out of the eatery as if it had its own revolving doorway. Kyle and Kenny stood off to the side of the entrance.

"The best time to pull this off is when they're the most busy." Kenny said.

"Pull _what_ off?"

"The free food we're about to get."

Kyle jaw dropped open. He didn't budge from the side of the building, but neither did Kenny. "What? Kenny I don't want to get busted stealing."

"You won't. Just watch me."

A middle-aged blond woman clutching a paper takeout bag exited Happy Burger. Kenny stepped in front of her and flashed his most persuasive smile from behind his parka.

"Hello ma'am. Are you going to be keeping your receipt today?" he said.

"My receipt?" the woman said.

"Yes. I'm with _PRO: Paper Recycling Organization_. We're going around to fast food places collecting receipts and paper bags to recycle."

"Oh, how nice. But how much can you really recycle from a tiny receipt?" the woman said.

Kyle cocked his head to the side, confused. His pulse began to beat a mile a minute. Too many follow-up questions and they'd get caught. To his credit though, Kenny replied to the woman's question without missing a beat. Whatever he was doing, it had obviously been well-rehearsed and/or practiced several times before.

"By itself not much, but millions of people eat fast food every day and just throw away their receipts and bags. Add all that paper up and we can save whole trees. So if you don't need your receipt, could we have it? You'd be doing a lot for mother earth."

Kyle tried not to snicker. Mother earth? What kind of hippie bullshit was Kenny spewing?

Whatever kind it was, it worked. The woman handed her receipt right on over with no further questions asked. Kenny successfully repeated the speech to the next man who left Happy Burger, then the couple after him, and the long-haired person after them whose gender Kyle couldn't quite identify. Kenny smirked in triumph, then continued explaining this lesson in theft 101 to Kyle.

"Now, we dig for gold." He began to thumb through the receipts until he discovered what he described as "Pay dirt." Kenny opened the front door to the store and motioned for Kyle to follow him inside with his hand. Kyle hesitantly did so.

Kenny waited patiently in line. He placed his receipt down onto the counter when he got up front.

"Hi. I was just in here and you guys forgot my twenty-piece nuggets" he said to the man behind the counter while pointing to "his" recent receipt.

"Que?" the brown-skinned Happy Burger worker replied. A white man stepped in front of him immediately.

"Sorry sir. Let me fix that for you."

"Thanks!"

Kyle watched in a combination of astonishment and nervousness. Was this really going to work? The white guy left and returned a minute later with a new paper bag. He handed it to Kenny, who winked at Kyle as he passed him on his way out the door. Kyle followed right behind him.

"Dude!" Kyle said.

"I know. Sweet huh? Two nuggets for everyone in the family tonight. Now you try, Kyle."

Kyle frowned. "I don't know dude. They have cameras in there. What if they go back and see you weren't in there? What if that poor guy gets fired for giving you free food by mistake?"

Kenny rolled his eyes. "Kyle, Happy Burger's not gonna go broke over some chicken nuggets. Food scams have been around forever."

"I know but...It just doesn't seem right. I mean, I know you're poor, but stealing food? Two wrongs don't make a right."

"Right? You know what's not right Kyle? The fact that poor people go hungry every night. We live in a country where people eat too much, get full and throw away the leftovers. Meanwhile they turn away my starving family if we don't have enough paper with dead Presidents on it. So five of us have to share a stolen nugget meal that's supposed to only be big enough to feed one person. _That's_ wrong!"

"You're definitely right about that" Kyle said solemnly. "Still, I don't know...."

"Kyle, you're lucky. You have a lawyer for a father. One big case and he can pay off your debt for you. But we can't all live like that. If you wanna get by 'cause of your dad, go for it. I'd take your dad's money any day. But if you wanna be your own man, actually be self-sufficient, then you have to be willing to do whatever you can to survive in the world. That includes getting what you can't afford, which is now everything if that hasn't sunk in for you yet."

Kyle looked through Kenny's fistful of receipts, pondering the decision.

"Kenny?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we at _least_ recycle these afterward for real so that it's not _as_ big of a lie?"

Kenny smiled. "Sure, but you can't make shit out of receipts. Welcome to the dark side, buddy."

Kyle found a receipt he liked and headed back inside.

THE END


End file.
